There were boats all around them, floating in the calm of this bright day. They had gathered for their version of a funeral. It was almost summer; you could feel it in the sun’s heat. Hundreds of snow geese had returned to the head of the bay. The craggy shoreline, empty and slicked with ice all winter, now bore all manner of life. On a rock in the middle of the water, a green and black tower of stone that rose up from the deep, sea lions crowded over one another. Seagulls flew above them in lazy white arcs, yapping like terriers. She saw nesting gulls and diving cormorants. Seals, with black or silver cocker spaniel faces, poked their noses up from the water alongside otters who lay lazily on their backs, cracking clams in quick-moving paws.

Not far away, Matthew sat in a shiny aluminum skiff with his father. Every time Matthew looked at Leni, she looked away, afraid to reveal her feelings for him in such a public place.

“My daddy loved this place,” Thelma was saying, her words swaying in time to the music made by her oar in the water. “He will be missed.”

Leni watched Thelma pour a stream of ashes from a cardboard box. They floated for a moment, fanned out, creating a murky stain, then slowly sank.

Silence fell.

Most of Kaneq was out here, or so it seemed. The Harlans, Tom and Matthew Walker; Large Marge; Natalie; Calhoun Malvey and his new wife; Tica Rhodes and her husband; and all the merchants. There was even a bunch of old-timers, men who lived so far off the grid and so deep in the bush they were hardly ever seen. They had few teeth and lots of stringy hair and hollowed-out cheeks. Several had dogs in their boats. Crazy Pete and Matilda stood on the shore, side by side.

One by one the boats floated back to shore, were beached. Mr. Walker carried Thelma’s canoe up the beach and tossed it into the back of a rusted pickup.

People instinctively looked to Mr. Walker to say something more, to bring them all together. They gathered close to him.

“I’ll tell you what, Thelma,” Mr. Walker said. “Why don’t you all come over to my place? I’ll throw some salmon on the fire and get out a case of cold beer. We can give Earl a send-off he’d love.”

“The big man, offering to host the wake for a man he looked down on,” Dad said. “We don’t need your charity, Tom. We will say goodbye in our own way.”

Leni wasn’t the only one who flinched at the stridency of her father’s voice. She saw shock on the faces around her.

“Ernt,” Mama said. “Not now.”